Read This: Books under the Radar is a weekly post written by a guest author – often a friend of mine, someone I’ve met on my writerly travels, or an author I admire – who recommends three books they think deserve more recognition. If you’re interested in buying any of the books, please click on the covers and give these hidden gems some love. You can see the full list of books which have been selected, as well as the author’s latest book on Bookshop.org, where you can have a browse and buy any that take your fancy. Happy reading!

Read This: Lucy Atkins

I can’t remember when I first met Lucy, but I can remember when I didn’t meet her. I was planning on going to her launch for her novel, Magpie Lane in March 2020, which of course got cancelled. I loved that book, and I loved her latest, Windmill Hill, and now I’m reading her back list and finding all sorts of gems. Since that cancellation, Lucy and I have met up many times to share the pain and pleasure of writing novels, to do joint events at book festivals, and regularly discussing writing process on her Instagram Lives – so make sure you follow her on Instagram. Here’s what she has to say about herself:

Lucy Atkins’ five novels include The Night Visitor, which has been optioned for television, Magpie Lane, which was a book of the year for BBC Radio 4’s Open Book, the Guardian, the Telegraph and Good Housekeeping magazine, and Windmill Hill, a summer book pick for both the Guardian and Observer. Lucy is a book critic for the Guardian and the Sunday Times and a tutor on the Creative Writing Master’s degree at Oxford University. Join Lucy on Instagram for Talking About Writing, a series of Live creative writing sessions with guest authors.

Find Lucy on Instagram

Here are the two books (yes two) Lucy has chosen:

Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Cespedes translated by Ann Goldstein

This novel was re-released recently, with fervent praise from Nobel prizewinner Annie Ernaux, as well as Elena Ferrante and Jhumpa Lahiri, and I’m not surprised. It’s genius. Published in Italy in the early 1950s, it’s a viscerally pent-up work, presented as the secret journal of a middle-aged mother of two young adults. But that makes it sound dull. It really isn’t. It’s furious and expansive, it rips apart a marriage, showing a selfish husband – his inner world is unpicked too – and two brutal children But it’s wider than that – she is really eviscerating mid-century gender roles and the prison of a woman’s domestic world.

It’s annoying that de Céspedes has been presented to a new generation of readers firmly in the category of ‘women’s fiction’ with endorsements only from women writers. Where are all the men? This is a novel about women, certainly, but also about society, politics, economics. It’s subtle and clever, quietly rage-filled, but also cool-headed and best of all – as all the finest novels are – it’s totally immersive.

Our Spoons Came from Woolworths by Barbara Comyns

I really don’t know why Comyns never became a household name, she’s a superbly odd and intense and memorable writer. This slim novel, written in 1950, kept me up till 2am each night, genuinely unsettled, and I almost always fall asleep when reading in bed after just a few pages, even when the book is good. It’s just so weirdly, breathily, compelling.

Set in the 1930s, it tells the story of 21-year-old Sophia and her young, feckless and self-centred husband Charles, both struggling painters in bohemian North London. Comyns’ depiction of poverty, unexpected pregnancies and a doomed love affair is closely autobiographical – which makes the story doubly shocking. Her writing has an artless intensity – it’s as if she’s in the room, just telling you something, whispering it, maybe, close up and sort of traumatised, but also plucky, and a little bit mad. There’s just no one like her.

---

I am so delighted that Lucy has chosen a Barbara Comyns’ novel because I too really love this and all her books, and she definitely deserves to be more widely known. I urge you to go out and buy this and read it, and also The Vet’s Daughter and Who was Drowned and Who was Dead, and then also why not Forbidden Notebook while you’re at it. Let me know in the comments whether you’ve heard of Barbara or Alba before. And if you’d like to be told about future Read This recommendations, you can follow me on Instagram, or subscribe to my newsletter.

More Read This: Books Under the Radar

Lou Morrish author of Women of War
Francesca Ramsay author of Pinch Me
Sarah Leipciger author of Moon Road
Tim Chapman university librarian
Juliet West author of The Faithful
Lindsay Hunter author of Hot Springs Drive
Gina Chung author of Sea Change
Susmita Bhattacharya author of Table Manners
Vanessa Harbour author of Safe
Freya North author of The Unfinished Business of Eadie Browne
Judith Heneghan author of Birdeye
Clare Mackintosh author of I Promise it won’t always Hurt like This
Barney Norris author of Undercurrent
Jo Leevers author of The Last Time I saw You
Alice Winn author of In Memmoriam
Jane Borges author of Bombay Balchão
Anna Mazzola author of The Book of Secrets
Jenna Smith book blogger and book club organiser